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Poems

Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882)

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I POEMS
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II MAY-DAY AND OTHER PIECES
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III ELEMENTS AND MOTTOES
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IV QUATRAINS AND TRANSLATIONS
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V APPENDIX
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THE POET
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FRAGMENTS ON THE POET AND THE POETIC GIFT
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FRAGMENTS ON NATURE AND LIFE
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NATURE
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LIFE
  
[A train of gay and clouded days]
  
[No fate, save by the victim's fault, is low]
  
[Around the man who seeks a noble end]
  
[From high to higher forces]
  
[This shining moment is an edifice]
  
[Roomy Eternity]
  
[The beggar begs by God's command]
  
[In the chamber, on the stairs]
  
[Such another peerless queen]
  
[Easy to match what others do]
  
[Of all wit's uses the main one]
  
[The tongue is prone to lose the way]
  
[She walked in flowers around my field]
  
[Friends to me are frozen wine]
  
[You shall not love me for what daily spends]
  
[To and fro the Genius flies]
  
[Love]
  
[The brave Empedocles, defying fools]
  
[Tell men what they knew before]
  
[Him strong Genius urged to roam]
  
[That each should in his house abide]
  
[Thou shalt make thy house]
  
[The archangel Hope]
  
[As the drop feeds its fated flower]
  
[Ever the Rock of Ages melts]
  
[Go if thou wilt, ambrosial flower]
  
[Yes, sometimes to the sorrow-stricken]
  
[But if thou do thy best]
  
[Ascending thorough just degrees]
  
[From the stores of eldest matter]
  
[The bard and mystic held me for their own]
  
[With the key of the secret he marches faster]
  
SUUM CUIQUE
  
[If curses be the wage of love]
  
[When wrath and terror changed Jove's regal port]
  
[Shun passion, fold the hands of thrift]
  
[The rules to men made evident]
  
[On bravely through the sunshine and the showers]
  
THE BOHEMIAN HYMN
  
GRACE
  
INSIGHT
  
PAN
  
MONADNOC FROM AFAR
  
SEPTEMBER
  
EROS
  
OCTOBER
  
PETER'S FIELD
  
MUSIC
  
THE WALK
  
COSMOS
  
THE MIRACLE
  
THE WATERFALL
  
WALDEN
  
THE ENCHANTER
  
WRITTEN IN A VOLUME OF GOETHE
  
RICHES
  
PHILOSOPHER
  
INTELLECT
  
LIMITS
  
INSCRIPTION FOR A WELL IN MEMORY OF THE MARTYRS OF THE WAR
  
THE EXILE
  
[I have an arrow that will find its mark]
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VI POEMS OF YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD 1823–1834

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[Thou shalt make thy house]

Thou shalt make thy house
The temple of a nation's vows.
Spirits of a higher strain
Who sought thee once shall seek again.
I detected many a god
Forth already on the road,
Ancestors of beauty come
In thy breast to make a home.
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